


Breathe

by Jinmukang



Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Chemical Pneumonia, Coughing, Hospitals, Leslie Thompkins having to deal with idiot vigilantes who would rather go to a CAVE than a HOSPITAL, Near Death Experiences, Oxygen mask, Pneumonia, Sickfic, Whumptober 2020, no.13, ventilators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinmukang/pseuds/Jinmukang
Summary: Dick gets hit with an unknown gas during a stakeout mission. It all goes downhill from there.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946413
Comments: 44
Kudos: 246
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> so i had this all written like, last month? but then i decided i really hated what i had for this prompt and rewrote it all with a different plot and everything yesterday. so hopefully it doesn't suck too badly. i apologize beforehand if this one isn't as well done as my other fics. i wasn't gonna spend any more time on it than i needed to. im tired of this one. hopefully it's enjoyable regardless of that <3
> 
> i gotta say tho, i do like how this one turned out compared to the original.

Even now, Jason's not really sure how it all went wrong. It was supposed to be a simple look-see and bail. Just watch the newest batch of criminals with their newest batch of illegal weapons, then take note of what their plans are, and then plan accordingly to take them down at a later date. 

But here's the deal. Things more often go wrong than go right when it comes to Gotham. Things get complicated and sometimes someone is smart enough to look up. Sometimes, Jason has to duck just in time to not get shot in the skull. Sometimes, Red Hood has to make a quick escape while a small army of armed thugs chase him out of the warehouse, armed with the fun calibers like .223 or 9mm. 

Sometimes, you make the dumb idea to team up on these kinds of missions, and sometimes you're forced to watch Nightwing take a lungful of some mysterious gas that definitely doesn't look friendly.

Sometimes, life just sucks ass, doesn't it?

"Wing!" Jason calls, slamming the back of his glock across some random bad-guy's jaw. He watches Dick stumble back, throwing the inside of his arm across his nose and coughing so hard he doubles over. 

Jason doesn't have the mental headspace to deal with this kind of crap today. So, instead of trying to grab Dick's attention, he fires his gun into the leg of the closest thug, runs into the diffusing cloud of yellowing gas, then he grabs Dick around his thinner waist. He doesn't squander a single second grabbing Dick's grapple from his hips and firing up towards the warehouse ceiling windows. 

He just manages to keep a grasp on Dick as they fly up and crash through the glass. Jason comes to a rolling halt on the slanted roof, but immediately rolls the other direction as a bullet whizzes through the rusting metal just to the left of his chest. 

Escape after that is easy. Dick's blinking like an idiot and looking pale, but he's able to at least hold on to Jason while Jason uses the grapple to swing about a block away to where he parked his bike. 

The moment Jason lands by his bike, he shoves Dick from him, rips off his helmet, and hopes his glare underneath is scary.

"What. The. _Hell_."

Dick at least has the decency to look ashamed. "Sorry? I wasn't expecting the guy to just whip out a gas capsule like that."

Jason growls and runs his gunpowder covered gloves through his hair. He takes a deep breath. Tries to calm down. He gets so _angry_ so _easily_. 

He inhales. Exhales. Looks back at Dick. "What did it do?"

Dick shrugs. "It smelled badly? Seriously, Jay, I think I'm fine. It must have been a fluke."

"You saw the same guns in there that I did, right?" Jason folds his arms and gives an unimpressed look. "They were more advanced than the rifles in the _military_. You think they'd have a gas bomb that was a fluke?"

"Lucky me?" 

Jason glares. "I hate you."

Dick shoots finger guns. 

With a sigh, Jason stuffs the helmet back onto his head. He jumps on his bike. "Just, at least get it checked on? I don't want the entirety of the family wanting my head on a stick because you died teaming up with me."

"Yeah, yeah," Dick replies, waving his hand. Dick clears his throat. "I think you're being-" he clears his throat again- "a little-"

Dick clears his throat, louder this time. Jason frowns. "Wing?"

Dick shakes his head, clears his throat one final time before a single cough bursts from his throat. Suddenly, Jason's watching as Dick dissolves into a fit of coughs, his arms wrapping around his chest as he bends over forwards. 

"Dick?" Jason jumps off his bike and approaches Dick with a spike of concern sprouting in his chest. Dick takes a gasping breath, spits out a disgusting lob of phlegm, then looks up at Jason with wide eyes behind his mask.

Jason stops in his tracks. Dick's lips are blue. 

"Shit," Dick rasps, then his legs give out below him.

-o-o-o-o-

For the better part of an hour, Jason's been sitting inside the medbay of the cave, watching as Dick sat forward in the cot over a bucket. He's vomited in it a few times, but that was a little while ago. The bucket has since been washed by Alfred and returned so Dick can cough and cough and cough into it, spitting out pink tinged phlegm. Dick's eyes were puffy, the skin around his cheeks and eyebrows red from what's probably the beginning of a rash caused by irritated skin. 

Jason originally didn't have plans to sit in the cave and watch Dick be sick, but because the chemical doing a number inside Dick's lungs was unknown, Jason didn't really have a choice. He walked into that cloud of gas, and while his helmet came with a filter, it didn't necessarily rule him out from being completely and totally at little risk of catching the same problems Dick's currently suffering through.

So, Jason's been confined to the medbay while Dick continues to hack into the bucket until he's choking and gasping. Bruce and Alfred work on finding a cure to the chemically induced pneumonia. Damian and Tim—who just happened to be visiting—were banished to the manor while this all went down. 

Tim, because without his spleen there's no telling what could happen if the gas happened to be contagious somehow. Damian, because the kid really didn't need to be down here anyway. 

Dick coughs wetly and makes a horrible sounding gag. Jason sighs and leans back in his chair, incredibly bored out of his mind and thankful that not the symptoms that appeared were not much more than coughing, small rashes, and blue tinged lips. 

The door to the medbay opens, and in walks Alfred. Alfred frowns as Dick continues to cough and choke out bloody chunks of mucus. They've tried multiple times to get Dick to wear an oxygen mask, but the guy keeps having to cough and spit, which results in him tugging the mask off a couple seconds after it was pulled on.

"Any news?" Jason asks, ignoring Dick continuing to cough. 

Alfred's shoulders fall ever so slightly. "I'm afraid not. How is master Dick fairing?" 

Dick makes a half-hearted thumbs up and Jason rolls his eyes. "I'd tell him to shut up, but I don't think he can."

"Hmm." Alfred walks forward with a frown matching the downward tilt of his brow. He walks towards Dick and checks him over, pressing on what must be _aching_ ribs and checking his temperature. He carefully inspects the rashes on Dick's face, and Dick just manages to hold in his coughing for the few minutes that it takes. However, the moment Alfred let's his face go, Dick returns to the bucket. Gagging. 

Jason wrinkles his nose. 

"Try to get him on the oxygen mask," Alfred says, turning towards Jason. "Miss Thompkins is still on her way with the breathing tubes and a solution for the IV."

"Traffic that bad?" Jason asks and Alfred hums. 

"Apparently, there was a seven car pile up on the bridge. Traffic is being sent on rather long detours out and into the island."

Seven cars huh? "Jesus. Gotta love Gotham."

"Indeed," Alfred replies with a bit of a smirk. But then Dick //coughs and the tense reality of the current situation settles back over them like a sopping wet blanket. "Watch his rashes as well, grab me if anything changes."

"Will do, Alf."

They both exchange a smile before Alfred leaves; abandoning Jason to listen to Dick suffer alone. 

Jason sighs and tries not to let his brain travel down dark paths. Like what kind of damage is really going on in Dick's lungs. Like if suggesting a team up tonight really was a bad idea. Like if this is all Jason's fault for being spotted in the first place. 

Instead, he stands up and grabs the oxygen mask and shoves it over Dick’s face. 

Dick tugs it off not two seconds later to spit more mucus into the tank.

“You’re disgusting,” Jason snorts. 

Dick doesn't respond because he’s too busy hacking out a lung, but Jason catches a small smile.

Dick's coughing soon becomes white noise. 

-o-o-o-o-

Jason knows immediately that something is very wrong when Dick goes silent. Then, he knows something is tremendously wrong when Dick chokes with cut off, painful sounding whimpers. He shoots his eyes up from where he’s been twiddling his fingers and then immediately jumps to his feet. 

Dick is shaking almost like he's having a seizure, except Jason knows it's really his lungs struggling to take in air. Jason almost runs forward to help, but thinks better about it when he realizes he has no idea how he'll be able to help in the first place. 

Instead, he turns tail towards the bay doors. 

He's about to tear the door open, but he finds himself stumbling back as it opens on its own.

In runs one of the only people Jason truly respects and fears. Leslie Thompkins rushes past Jason towards Dick without even sparing a glance. Immediately, she's checking him over. Trying to get his attention. Listing to his gurgling that can hardly be called breathing. Bruce and Alfred enter as well, looking distressed. 

Leslie doesn't take long to look up and glare at every single person in the room.

"He needs a hospital."

And no one argues. Alfred quickly leaves the room to call an ambulance while Jason and Bruce rush forward to undress Dick from his Nightwing suit. Leslie presses an oxygen mask to his mouth and keeps it firmly in place even though Dick begins to try and struggle, his eyes dazed and panicked. 

Leslie snarls Bruce's ears off, something about her not knowing it was this bad and how he should have gone straight to the hospital, but Jason can only focus on getting Dick into normal civilian clothes so the hospital doesn't ask anything. 

By the time they rush Dick upstairs and through the manor doors to where an ambulance made it over in record time—the perks of being rich, Jason supposes—Dick's hardly responding to anything. Hardly breathing. 

The ambulance rushes away and Jason's left with Damian and Tim watching with matching looks of fear. 

And for a single, strange second, Jason wants to tell them that it'll all be okay. 

But he can't find it in himself to speak and possibly lie. 

Dick will be okay. He has to be. 

He _has_ to be. 

-o-o-o-o-

He will be okay, Jason thinks as he settles in Dick's private room. He's unconscious, hooked onto a crazy looking ventilator, trussed up to all kinds of tubes and wires. The doctors say they got most of the gas out from his lungs, but the damage left as a result is severe.

Severe enough for Dick to completely stop breathing on his own. 

But he will be okay. 

Even if it takes months for Dick to recover. Even if he'll be plagued by respiratory issues for the rest of his life. 

He'll be okay. 

Bruce's hand lands on Jason's shoulder. He looks so tired. So worn. Jason wonders if he looked like this when Jason died, or if he looked worse. He doesn't wonder for too long, he's not sure if his stomach could take it.

"He'll be okay," Bruce says. To Jason. To himself. To Dick. To nothing and no one at all.

Jason nods. 

He'll be okay. 

Because Jason's pretty sure no one in this quilted family of mismatch textiles could go on for long without him. 

He'll be okay, because he has to be.

Dick continues to remain completely unconscious to the world, a machine breathing for him.

**Author's Note:**

> woah? congrats on finishing!!! leave a comment please? for a starving author? please. they're my only source of food. im begging-


End file.
